Five Bests from the Playoffs (thus far)

5. Portland Fans chanting "Lets Go Blazers" last night with 30 seconds to go and the Suns leading by 9 points.

4. Bango's Backflip. Who says a mascot doesn't have any effect on a game?


3. @LeBronsElbow

2. Tie: Durant blocking Kobe to add insult to injury in game 4 and the Irony behind the "Carmelo's People of Utah" ad campaign.

1. Dwyane Wade's 46 point outburst and subsequent yelling at his hand.

Dragon Slaying

The Lakers, Spurs, Blazers, Nuggets, Jazz, Suns and Mavs have all been staples of the Western Conference playoffs the last decade or so. This lack of diversity in the Playoff gene pool has led to some great playoff games, great meltdowns and a great set up for this year. The late 90's proved to be the same kind of scenario in the Eastern Conference with the Knicks, Bulls, Pacers, and Heat. Coming from those series were a number of great Jordan moments, Reggie's theatrics and heroics versus the Knicks, and the Playoffs best announcer, Jeff Van Gundy, clinging to Alonzo Mourning's leg. It seemed that every year a Heat/Knicks matchup was inevitable, because it was. From 1997-2000, they met every year in the Playoffs and played the maximum number of games each series, with the clinching game of the series being decided in the closing moments of the game. Miami only beat the Knicks in one of those four series, the first one in 1997. After that, the Knicks became Miami's dragon; the naturally sworn enemy and inevitable matchup for the Heat, a matchup they could never overcome.

The Heat went through another stretch, although much shorter and less dramatic, when a matchup with the Detroit Pistons seemed destined every year. This may have had more to do with the Pistons versus Shaquille O'Neal (dating back to their upset of the Shaq/Malone/Kobe Lakers), but it was the Heat's dragon to slay if they wanted to win a championship. This year, the west is full of such destined matchups. Mavs/Spurs. Jazz/Nuggets. Suns/Spurs. Jazz/Lakers (potential). Suns/Lakers (potential). Lakers/Spurs (potential). Jazz/Spurs (potential). Its almost a paper/rock/scissors set up. Spurs own the Suns, Lakers own the Jazz, Spurs own the Lakers, Lakers own the Suns, and for the sake of the analogy lets just say the Jazz own the Suns. Each team seems to have a date with destiny, a passage though fire, or any other cliched hero/dating reference. Somebody is going to have to slay their team's figurative dragon.

Who wins in all this melee? We do. The way the first round has gone, we can almost assume that round two will be turned up to 11. I'm still hoping that Kevin Durant walks on water for the next two games of the Lakers/Thunder series, but if not it doesn't mean that the best basketball is behind us. Rather, its yet to come.

From Bad To Worse

This isn't 2008. The Heat aren't loading up their starting line-up with a murderer's row of Stephane Lamse, Kasib Powell, Alexander Johnson and Earl Barron. There isn't the hope of a Mike Beasley coming in as a proverbial savior. Most importantly, we aren't worried about whether or not Dwyane Wade is going to have the career arc of Penny Hardaway. These things I am grateful for as a Miami Heat fan.

The one thing that does compare to 2008 is the taste in my mouth after Tuesday night's drubbing in Boston. It didn't only give me nightmares from 2008, but from seasons past in Miami Heat lore. Allow me to expand.

First, the game Tuesday night had the luck of the draw when it comes to announcers. Anytime you can get Reggie Miller as the color guy during a TNT telecast, you can count on ridiculous hyperbole, knife twisting and wound salting, overexcited yelling at random times, and terrible anecdotes. Tuesday was no exception. The Heat were hard at work preparing the finest turd sandwich that $73 million can buy. Everybody could see that. Reggie managed to reiterate it at least a dozen times at the expense of my fandom. Then he began to get loud and obnoxious, yelling things like "Trade KG" every time Big Baby made an awkward lay-up or "the side-line three should be renamed the Ray Allen" as Ray poured in 3 balls from all over the court. Only two other announcers have driven me as mad as Miller Time did tuesday night; Doug Collins and Bill Walton. These three share a common bond. They are poor color commentators who somehow get some of the bigger games and spend the entire night embellishing their careers and raising even the most meager of stars to the upper echelon of NBA greats. Not to mention they are 10 times worse when your team is losing.

There was a time during the late 90's Heat playoff runs where I had to watch games on mute because Bill Walton seemed to be commentating durning EVERY Heat game. And they would lose every game he was working. It was a dark time for me. I didn't even have to watch the games to know the outcome. I just had to hear the play by play long enough to distinguish the voices.

Doug Collins is just as bad. Just watch any Lakers game. Or any Bulls game in the late 90's. Or any Jazz fan during their Finals runs. Or even a Suns fan as recent as Sunday night. He has the ability, same as Reggie and Bill, to take a bad game and make it worse.

I'd like to thank Charles Barkley for begging TNT to switch over to the Suns/Blazers game and saving me from further misery. And I'd like to ask for just one playoff game win this year. Just one. But if not, I'm glad the Celtics are looking like they really might have one more run left in them.

Canada's Team/End of Season Edition

After losing out to another sub-.500 team for the final playoff spot (paging the league: let's make a .500 cutoff.) and on the brink of losing the only real star on such a disappointing team, Canada has spoken and here are the latest rankings in The Campaign To Become Canada's Team:

1: Vancouver Canucks
2: Ottawa Senators
3: Montreal Canadiens
4-thru-1,000,000: Anybody but the so disappointing Raptors and that includes Toronto's least favorite player Vince Carter's Magic*.
1,000,001: Toronto Raptors







* Don't worry. This is the first and last place you will ever see the Magic belong to Vince Carter. It was solely for clarity's sake.

The Tables Have Turned

The worst thing about playing a team you are guaranteed to beat is the outside chance you won't beat them. Welcome to the psyche to everyone who has to play the Nettes in the last couple weeks of the season. Seeing the Nettes on the schedule right now is worse than seeing the orange-hot Milwaukee Bucks, the streaking Phoenix Suns, The Jackson Five, or even the Promise Making Chicago Bulls. You never want to lose to the worst team. Ever.


As a Heat fan I went through it a week ago as D-Wade and Co went to the Meadowlands and I am staring down the barrel of another potential disaster the last game of the season in Miami.

Here is why it sucks. Lets say you are the Phoenix Suns who are a game out of second place in the Western Conference. One of your rivals, the Mavs, are playing a tough Grizzlies team on the road and the other rival, the Jazz are playing a tricky Warriors team at home. You've got the Nettes on the schedule. One of the 3 worst teams OF ALL TIME but who are playing like a playoff team now. Winners of 3 out of 4 including one over the Spurs. So the Suns are thinking they are moving up to at least the 3rd seed and possibly the 2nd. You have penciled in a win because you don't think you'll be the team to lose to them. You won't be one of the 10 wins they have all season....right?

So while one Lopez tries to get braggin rights over the other, I'll be biting my nails hoping that the Nettes can pick up a win or two against someone else so it doesn't have to happen to my guys.

TeeMak Reinvents The Postage Stamp

I went to the Jazz/Knicks game the other night and, besides being underwhelmed by the Jazz's nonexistent Blood In The Water instinct, I was completely floored by a player I didn't think I could like less.

Tracy McGrady, you are a being of miraculous ways. There I was, thinking I despised you at the very peak of my despise-ation. And you, with your loafing indifference and half-assed shrugs (I mean, MAN, who shrugs half-assedly? A shrug is, by definition, half-ass!), cleared the clouds away, revealing yet ANOTHER PEAK OF DESPISE-ATION. Plaudits, Tracy.

In any other job, you would be fired. And your severance package would stink because your employer would have just cause. You clearly don't give a crap. You couldn't defend a mime in a fake box. And wouldn't even try. For millions upon millions of dollars. Ask the average American what they would do for just ONE million dollars.

Take a charge every night for 82 nights? Absolutely.
Run myself to exhaustion everyday for a full calendar year? No question.
Live in NYC and play basketball? Wait. YOU are paying ME?

You talented, lazy prince of the coast. Only in the unreality world of the NBA and its ridiculous contracts can you get away with such garbage. No wonder Houston sat on you until they could ship you to somebody who "wanted" you. Frankly, I'm amazed D'Antoni even bothers. He's shown no aversion to sitting purported "studs." (And let's get this out of the way now: you are no longer a stud. You may have been a star. Moronic voters may have been deluded enough to nearly vote you into an all-star position. But you are done. Cooked.)

Would I be so abrasive if you tried? No. I respect guys whose knees have quit but whose hearts refuse to. I respect guys whose grit outweighs their talent. I respect guys whose effort nods to the fact that they're blessed to get to go do for a living what the rest of us carve time out of our pathetic lives to do for FUN.

I hereby take away from your cousin Vince the moniker of The Postage Stamp. Your revolutionary approach to mailing it in has shamed him. Congratulations. I'll even capitalize the "T" in PosTage Stamp for you. Since I know you'd be too lazy to do it yourself.

PS: Thanks for the draft pick.

BFD

This video is getting quite a bit of attention lately, but not for the right reason. Everybody thinks that Biden was referring to some legislation that passed and was signed on Tuesday. The signing that Joe Biden was so excited about was that of me returning to the Cavs. See, I had been hanging out in Washington for the last couple weeks and I made a few friends. Who knew DC was so friendly to 7 foot Lithuanians? Among those new friends was none other than the pride of Scranton, PA.

That friendship had its benefits. I didn't have to spend my time at the local YMCA or some DC high school working on my game. I was in the White House every day balling it up with Joe and O (as they like to call each other) on the White House parquet floor. I was always on Joe's team because Obama had someone new playing on his team everyday; Brad Pitt, MJ, Bill Bradley, Barkley. But Joe and I were an unstoppable combo. We didn't lose a single game.

Thats why it is a big effing deal that I am returning to Cleveland.

When I got back to Cleveland and signed my new deal, LeBron whispered the same thing into my ear that Biden whispered to Obama. I'm glad he finally realizes it.

You know what I said back? Don't screw this up or I'm going to be playing in New York next year.

Things I Wish I Had Remembered Before Last Wednesday or Broken Brackets

Ohio, St Mary's, UNI, Cornell, and Washington made everyone completely unproductive over the weekend and completely leveled everyone's bracket. Sure, I wish I would have pick at least one of those teams. Who wouldn't (because NOBDOY did unless your name is Jay Bilas). But if I had to fill out a bracket again, knowing what I know now, I would do things a little differently. However, the changes I would make don't include any of those teams. It involves this grainy little YouTube clip:



Why did I not pick Jordan Crawford and his Xavier teammates to do more than beat the Golden Gophers before bowing out? How did I forget the most talked about basketball player of last summer? And most importantly, how did I not pick out some kind of anti-LeBron storyline to root for during the tournament? I know I've done something of a 180 on LeBron this season, but that doesn't mean he isn't still fun to root against. Jordan Crawford was that storyline and not only did I miss it, I air-balled it.

Two Recommendations

We do album reviews here. Nor movie reviews. Not book reviews. Album reviews. And even those are starting to be hard to come by. But, as Charlie T mentioned, I've been on the clock with The Man lately and thus away from TBC. But it did give me some time to read.

I finished Bill Simmons' The Book of Basketball. It's as exhaustive as it looks and sounds. My quick, Twitter-length review is: exhaustive, funny, smart look @ who matters in NBA history by an admitted homer. Ends weak.

But I read it- all 600+ pages of it- in under three months. So that's saying something. If not for the last two chapters' petering out, I'd really recommend it (as long as you take it with a spoonful of I Can Tolerate A Celtic Bias antivirus). Maybe later I'll take a stab at a real review, but suffice it to say, I tore through it. I even used his MJ Is Better Than LeBron Until... argument a day after reading it.

And, speaking of Simmons, I can't recommend highly enough the latest 30for30, Winning Time about Reggie Miller's classic clash with the 90's Knicks. Even my wife was riveted, gasping, laughing out loud. Very very good.

Upset Special

This just in from Jay Bilas following a suspenseful Selection Sunday.

"I really like the chances of Golden State advancing as a 14 seed underdog. I think the way they match-up with Baylor is really going to give them an advantage. The way they can stretch the floor with their shooters and cover ground on defense with their length will be hard for Baylor to overcome. I also think Stephan Curry will be a great pro prospect going somewhere in the second half of the lottery. The kid can really shoot the ball."

Thanks Jay. Golden insight once again.